There is an incredible easy equation to make--both morally and financially. The one percent broke it now they need to fix it. And it all adds up, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The math:
The Democrats' proposed tax on millionaires would raise an estimated $453 billion, more than enough to pay for President Obama's jobs bill.
That's the latest from the Congressional Budget Office, which on Friday released its cost and revenue estimates for the American Jobs Act of 2011.
The chances that the surtax on the millionaires will pass is pretty slim, given the Tea Party House leadership. But, as a political matter, it is a strong idea to push.
Let's be absolutely clear. The economic crisis we are in is precisely because of the behavior of a large number (not all) of those people who live in the 392,000 households, or 0.2% of households, who would pay the surtax.
It isn't just the Wall Streeters, bankers, hedge fund guys. I have long ago argued that we need to see the current financial crisis that obliterated trillions of dollars in wealth as something that has taken place over 30 years (something I wrote about in "The Audacity of Greed").
The crisis we face today was brought to us courtesy of the whole class of CEOs and corporate managers who spent 30 years making sure that they stripped companies of wealth, bludgeoned the wages and benefits of generations of working Americans and attacked unions relentlessly.
They have their wealth because of the fruits of that plundering.
This surtax is just a small down payment to return the wealth to the people.
And, respectfully, a lot of that 0.2 percent, even if they were just playing the market to become rich, did so because of the run up in stocks of companies that were valued higher for one simple reason: they reduced "costs" and become more "efficient"...meaning, cut wage and benefits for workers.
You can call it class warfare. And we know which class needs to pay. Or, if you are a thinking, moral human being, you can call it a modest dues to make sure we live in a civil society.